SCOTUS: Strip-searching teenage girls for Ibuprofen not cool

In an 8-1 decision, the Supreme Court declared a strip search of a teenage girl at an Arizona middle school unconstitutional.  The decision does not bar strip searches per se, but it blasts the school district for humiliating a minor over Ibuprofen.  The one dissenter?  Guess:

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the strip search of a 13-year-old schoolgirl violated the constitutional protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

In a closely watched case filled with poignant facts, the court by an 8-1 margin ruled that Arizona school officials violated student Savana Redding’s Fourth Amendment rights when they searched her down to her bra and underpants. Officials were looking for pain pills, which they did not find.

“The content of the suspicion failed to match the degree of intrusion,” Justice David Souter wrote for the majority.

I’d call that a highly nuanced view of the situation.  When, exactly, does a strip search by school authorities become reasonable?  Souter says that a combination of circumstances caused the legality of the search to be “fatal” — a lack of reasonable cause, and the clear dissonance between the extent of the intrusion and the extent of the danger.  However, it seems to me that school officials shouldn’t conduct these kinds of searches at all, but should instead either call the parents or call the police, who (usually) have better training on the conduct of searches.

Justice Clarence Thomas disagrees, however, writing in a lone dissent that the search was reasonable (pages 43-44):

“[T]he nationwide drug epidemic makes the war against drugs a pressing concern in every school.” Board of Ed. of Independent School Dist. No. 92 of Pottawatomie Cty. v. Earls, 536 U. S. 822, 834 (2002). And yet the Court has limited the authority of school officials to conduct searches for the drugs that the officials believe pose a serious safety risk to their students. By doing so, the majority has con-firmed that a return to the doctrine of in loco parentis is required to keep the judiciary from essentially seizing control of public schools. Only then will teachers again be able to “‘govern the[ir] pupils, quicken the slothful, spur the indolent, restrain the impetuous, and control the stubborn’” by making “‘rules, giv[ing] commands, and punish[ing] disobedience’” without interference from judges. See Morse, supra, at 414. By deciding that it is better equipped to decide what behavior should be permitted in schools, the Court has undercut student safety and undermined the authority of school administrators and local officials. Even more troubling, it has done so in a case in which the underlying response by school administrators was reasonable and justified. I cannot join this regrettable decision. I, therefore, respectfully dissent from the Court’s determination that this search violated the Fourth Amendment.

I disagree that the “nationwide drug epidemic” includes Ibuprofen, in the first place.  In a more broad sense, the doctrine of in loco parentis has not included strip searches without probable cause.  It does allow for the governance of pupils and punishing disobedience, but does that include strip searches of adolescents on flimsy grounds? I don’t see the connection between strip searches and the upholding of in loco parentis, and I imagine that parents of adolescents won’t, either.  The Fourth Amendment protects everyone against “unreasonable search and seizure” by state authorities.  Public schools certainly qualify as a state authority, and this search was neither reasonable nor necessary, as the school had other options, including involving the girl’s parents.

I admire Justice Thomas, but he’s wrong on this case.

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